Remember when Microsoft owned the Web and for that matter computers as well as the Internet? Remember when there was only Internet Explorer and no Firefox? Remember when the only computing platform was Microsoft Office? Not so long ago was it, but now things are very different. Firefox has a distinct growing percentage of the browsing market, Macs are more common place, Open Office and Cloud computing are starting to become mainstream.
Now take a look at Google. Google used to, and for that matter is for right now, the dominant search engine and pay per click platform, but that will change. You have to look no farther than the model of Microsoft’s dominance and what is happening now in the news to know that Google is losing it’s grip on owning the world of search.
Some of Google’s thorns are Facebook, Bing, and the lack of true innovation within its own kingdom. When was the last time you saw one of Google’s new products hit the market make a big splash and be widely embraced? It’s been a while! Remember the flops: Friend Connect, Orkut, Google Wave, Google Buzz? Their last big hit was GMail and they drove traffic there by requiring everyone to set up a GMail account to use any Google products including AdWords when it first came out thereby pushing up initial membership.
Now let’s look at Microsoft. As this giant has aged, it has mellowed. It has grudgingly embraced, but embraced never the less, change. It has adapted and ended up creating better products with greater inclusion and transparency. Google is in a stat of flux, right now it is trying to grasp on to its glory days but may want to look at the Microsoft model to see how it may be able to stay vital yet play more as a partner and not as a desperate bully.
I never use my website or blog as an ad platform. I do not want to dilute my own brand and message.
How do you have ads without slowing down your website? I used to have a small website on designer cups, but every time I tried to advertise on it it took 8+ seconds to load.